Three members of the Poetry Society of South Carolina who have recently published books--Libby Bernardin, Lisa-Hase Jackson, and Len Lawson will participate in a group reading as part of the Write On! Literacy Festival at the Main Library Auditorium.

Libby Bernardin: Libby Bernardin's first full collection is Stones Ripe for Sowing (Press 53, 2018). She has two chapbooks, The Book of Myth (SC Poetry Initiative, 2009) and Layers of Song (Finishing Line Press, 2011). Poems have appeared in numerous journals and her poem “Transmigration” winner of the NC Poetry of Witness Award was nominated for a 2017 Pushcart Prize. She lives in Georgetown and is a Life Member of the Board of Governors of the South Carolina Academy of Authors.

Lisa M. Hase Jackson: Lisa M. Hase-Jackson’s debut collection of poetry, Flint and Fire, was selected by Jericho Brown for the 2019 Hilary Tham Capital Collection Series, an imprint of The Word Works. She holds an MFA in poetry from Converse College in Spartanburg, South Carolina, and a MA in English from Kansas State University. A full-time writer, Lisa is Editor in Chief of South 85 Journal and founding editor of Zingara Poetry Review. Lisa lives in Charleston, South Carolina.  

Len Lawson: Len Lawson is the author of Chime (Get Fresh Books, 2019), the chapbook Before the Night Wakes You (Finishing Line Press, 2017), and co-editor of Hand in Hand: Poets Respond to Race (Muddy Ford Press, 2017). He won the 2016 Jasper Magazine Literary Artist of the Year Award.  He has received fellowships from Callaloo, Vermont Studio Center, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, the inaugural 2018 Susan Laughter Meyers Poetry Fellowship from Weymouth Center for the Arts, and the 2019 Alice Conger Patterson Scholarship from the Emrys Foundation. His poetry appears or is forthcoming in Callaloo Journal, African American Review, Verse Daily, Mississippi Review, and elsewhere. Len is also a Ph.D. student in English Literature and Criticism at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. He has taught English in South Carolina higher education for ten years.

Books will be available for purchase after the reading.